


The Cousin's Christmas

by Baekhanded



Series: FoxTail Cafe [7]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-23 05:52:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16152938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baekhanded/pseuds/Baekhanded
Summary: Nicky's Holiday





	The Cousin's Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last one I have you guys!!!! Thank you for coming on this journey with me im so sad to see it end, BUT IT DOESNT' HAVE TO!!! if you have ideas and think I could do them justice, id love to complete them!!

Nicky had the highest of hopes, always, for his cousins. Time and time again he’s been burnt, but it doesn’t keep him safe from the fire. He’s tried everything to bond with them. Andrew’s a tough cookie to crack, but he had a little success with video games. And at least he knows Andrew likes sweets. Aaron isn’t picky about food (which Nicky considers lucky) andre isn’t necessarily picky either….more….peculiar. Particular. But that’s neither here nor there. 

 

Nicky loves his cousins. More than people think he should, considering how they are. But he  _ gets  _ them. Maybe not intimately, but he understands more than others what they’ve been through. He’s see the good the bad and the ugly.

 

But it’s Christmas. And Christmas is a time for family. At least to Nicky it is. It’s always been about family to him in one way or another. Even with religious parents and the weirdness that went into their Christmases. Once he met Erik Christmas became his favorite holiday. He showed Nicky what a real Christmas should be like. He’d loved it ever since.

 

Ever since he’d taken custody of the twins he’d tried to entice the Christmas Spirit into them when the season came. They skipped Thanksgiving so Nicky always got to get started on decorating early. Most people thought it was  _ too  _ early, but if there’s one thing Andrew and Aaron have taught him, it’s not to care what strangers think and he takes pride in what their house looks like. Even if it is a bit early. 

 

Sometimes he’d lure Aaron into helping him decorate. When Andrew wasn’t around (which was often these days) he’d get Aaron talking about Katelyn. Andrew never let conversation involving her happen easily, if at all. He liked how, when he was lucky, bringing her up would bring a pep in Aaron’s step.  _ Sometimes  _ he’d even let Nicky gush about Erik. 

 

Try as he might though, he had yet to succeed in getting Andrew to join in their festivities. He’d even offered to let him put the star on top of the tree! He’d also yet to learn about the type of people Andrew found attractive. He knew there was something going on somewhere with someone. He  _ knew.  _

 

Andrew had always kept to their schedule until recently. He’d still stick to dropping off and picking them up, but where he’d usually hover or loiter at home with them he’d taken to spending a lot of time elsewhere. Nicky wasn’t a sleuth though, and Renee was too tight lipped. But she had deemed it as something good, so Nicky was happy and quick to believe her. 

 

Still, Nicky  _ really  _ wanted to know where his cousin was spending his time, and with whom. It’s hard to know he probably won’t ever get to find it out. It was nothing short of a miracle they even found out about Renee. Nicky still wasn’t 100% sure how Andrew and the Angel Renee were friends, but he was glad to know Andrew had  _ someone  _ he counted on. He was still a little bitter that it wasn’t  _ him.  _ That Andrew seemed to feel he couldn’t trust him or count on him. He’d do anything for him. For them both. Andrew either didn’t know (unlikely) or didn’t believe it. Nicky didn’t know how to make it clear.

 

He just wanted Andrew to know that he was loved, even if he was a little shit most of the time. 

 

He’d also like to spend one Christmas as a family, even if it was a tense Christmas. At least they’d be together. Every year without Andrew present always left a five foot hole in his life. Maybe he could bribe him?

 

Somehow. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Naturally, it didn’t work. Nothing Nicky thought of worked. He couldn’t bribe him or persuade him, he sure as hell couldn’t blackmail him. He couldn’t even get Renee to ask him. His begging sure as hell didn’t work. Against every effort Nicky had and all in his arsenal, he had failed. Christmas once again would be an “Aaron and Nicky” affair.

  
  


Needless to say Nicky felt a bolt of shock and surprise surge through him on Christmas morning after descending the stairs and seeing gifts that he hadn’t wrapped himself or placed under the tree for Aaron. 

 

It was very clear what they were, unless Andrew had somehow become a master of strange origami (which Nicky wouldn’t put it past him). They were rather large and rectangular. Pictures or something, something artful. Maybe Andrew was finally doing something about their ‘horrible taste in paintings’. 

 

Aaron seemed as surprised as Nicky when he followed him downstairs moments later.

 

“Last second gifts?” he’d asked. Nicky shrugged and shook his head.

 

“Maybe? Maybe he’s just being dramatic?”

 

“You mean you didn’t do this?” Nicky shook his head.

 

“No I had all my stuff under the tree and set out days ago!”

 

Aaron hmm’d and went toward them, “Should we start with them?”

 

Nicky felt torn, he wanted to know desperately what Andrew had put there, but he also was terrified of what it might be. It was hard to tell the direction he’d go. It could just be a bloody sign saying “Fuck You” for all he knew. 

 

If Aaron’s face was anything to go by, he thought much the same. But he was braver than Nicky would ever be and he grabbed the newspaper wrapped rectangles and handed one to Nicky. 

 

He and Aaron exchanged a look and tore the paper away.

 

It wasn’t what Nicky was expecting. It wasn’t what he was expecting at all. He felt tears fill his eyes and fall in record time, before he even registered that it was happening. 

 

Staring back at him was a perfect rendition of Erik. There were no words, Nicky was speechless and tears kept falling from his eyes. The intake of breath tore his attention from Erik’s face to Aaron’s. Pure shock. All Nicky could see was shock. He stepped beside his cousin to see what he got.

 

It was exactly like Nicky’s, but Katelyn instead of Erik. 

 

Andrew had gotten them painted. How did he even manage that? Nicky didn’t know he had gotten access to their pictures like that. But this was Andrew they were talking about. But the attention to detail… it felt wrong, somehow, that Andrew had went and told someone to paint these. 

 

“Does...does Andrew paint?” he asked, his voice choked with unshed tears.

 

Aaron just gave a small shrug, “I...don’t know.”

 

Then Nicky saw it, a very clearly Andrew “A” in the very upper corner of each painting.

 

“He does...Aaron look,” he pointed out the “A”.  They stared in shocked silence, the gravity of what this meant not lost on either of them.

 

They both knew by now that Andrew was a creature of action, not words. Words didn’t mean much to him, only a few did, but action was his language. Nicky knew from the start he would never get a ‘thank you’ from the twins, for taking them in and being their guardian. At least he never thought he would. He never thought a ‘thank you’ could come in the form of a gift, or really anything but verbally expressed. But he knew this was Andrew’s ‘thank you.’

 

His ‘thank you’ for Nicky putting his life on hold. For leaving the love of his life to come and take care of two damaged teenagers. For doing everything he’s done to keep them cared for. He’ll never hear the words from Andrew. Never hear a “thank you” or an “I love you” or an “I’m grateful.” 

 

He knows Andrew cares. It’s always been such a muddled line, the way he thought of his cousin and twin. Nicky had thought he’d known several times, then Andrew had done something and he wasn’t so sure anymore. For years he was never confident Andrew felt anything but animosity toward them. But now. Now he knows. He knows Andrew cares. That all Nicky’s done has helped. Even in a small way, he’s made a difference in his cousin’s life.

 

Fresh tears fall down his cheeks. He wishes Andrew were here, that he could hug him. He takes Aaron instead, carefully setting their beautiful paintings aside and takes his little cousin in his arms. He doesn’t even fight back, just grabs the back of Nicky’s night shirt like his life might depend on it.

 

Nicky knows that Aaron knows then too. That even through Andrew’s antagonizing and hatred of everyone Aaron was around and silence he cared. He cared deeply for them both but had only been burned by caring before. The only way he could show it was like this. He couldn’t ever be in the same room when announcing his feelings like this. Not with them.

 

But he knew that they would know. He’d trusted them to know his intentions. He  _ trusted  _  them. He  _ trusts  _ them. He loves them, in his own way. 

 

And that was enough.

 

It was more than enough.

 

This had been, by far, one of Nicky’s best Christmasses to date. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! if you want other perspectives or more stories of the same universe or if you have any ideas youd like me to toy with!! I'd be happy to try my hand at it!


End file.
